Maybe Someday
by Kosaka
Summary: Viktor is the only person Bill allows to see his pain, but when Fleur leaves Bill for another woman even his friendship with the Bulgarian is pushed to the breaking point. Bill/Viktor. Pre-slash. Post-DH but no notable spoilers . Oneshot.


A/N: I'm going to make people love Bill Weasley x Viktor Krum if it kills me. lol. Pre-slash. Crack pairing. Standard Disclaimers Apply.

**Maybe Someday**

"I told you enough is enough," Viktor sighed as he tried to get his key into the door of his flat with Bill Weasley shifting – drunk and only about half-clothed with his shirt askew and exposing far too much midriff pressed blearily against his side.

"Celeste!" Bill scoffed. "_You_ _don't understand_, Viktor. Fleur has left me for _Celeste!_ I've been such a bad husband I've turned her gay," he sulked, and fell face first onto Viktor's hardwood floor when the door swung open.

Viktor winced. He'd _almost_ caught him. But almost, as they say, only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. He heard a muffled 'ow', as he lowered himself to one knee and rolled the redhead over and pulled out his wand to fix his bloodied nose.

"I've done everything wrong," Bill sulked.

"Blaming yourself for everything that goes vrong, this is a habit of yours," he pointed out. "If vhat Fleur needs to be happy is the attentions of another voman, I do not think this is something you have done vrong. Come. A hot bath and detoxifying potion vill make you feel better." He hauled Bill to his feet. He hated to insult one of his friends, but Fleur seriously lacked tact. Bringing her girlfriend to dinner and shoving divorce papers in Bill's face had been very uncouth, but he didn't expect that Bill would take it this hard months after the fact.

He had been fine at first. He'd even smiled and told Celeste 'nice to meet you'. The papers he'd brushed off to the children as 'a letter from your Uncle Charlie. I'll tell you all about it later'. He'd managed to hold himself together through the whole mess, until tonight. After work today he'd apparated to France to sign the papers that made it all rather final. And, as Bill didn't want his family to know just how torn up he really was over it, lest they get even more zealous in their Fleur-bashing (which really didn't help, mother of his children and all...), he'd turned to Viktor, who had become a good friend these past few years and asked him to 'get together with me for a drink.' He'd been smiling, but Viktor had learned not to trust Bill's smile. He used it as a weapon and as a shield, and only rarely because he was truly happy.

"That will only make me feel sober," Bill slurred, but Viktor had already seated him on the toilet and was pulling his shirt over his head. This drunk, Bill didn't notice the way his gaze lingered. Bill just didn't understand. A woman would _have to _prefer women to leave such a man as he was. He had had his own crush on Bill for some time. It was easy to get along with him, easier to be his friend, especially as he'd been married until five hours ago. Now...

_'Now he is still both perfect and perfectly heterosexual, Viktor. And this is no time to engage in pointless fantasies.'_

He settled Bill into the tub, after much awkward fumbling and an accidental arse-groping that Viktor could feel burning his skin through the seat of his jeans, and added some bubbles, more for his own sake than for Bill's. "I vill get that potion for you," he said. "And after you bathe, some tea. Yes?"

Bill peered at him, squinting one eye, head cocking awkwardly to the side, hair fanning about him like a firey lion's mane. He was positively disheveled, but Viktor still found him the most handsome man he'd ever laid eyes on. "Hey, Vik?"

"Yes?" Viktor asked, blinking. Bill didn't seem to realize how unnecessarily close together their faces were.

"How come you never got married? Guy like you? I bet you wouldn't have any trouble finding a nice woman. And you'd make an awesome dad."

Viktor wouldn't deny that the idea of children of his own, just one or two, had a certain appeal, but he knew it would never happen. "I am more interested in Qvidditch than girls," he answered. This was true. There were a lot of things he was more interested in than girls. "Especially girls who only care that I am a Qvidditch player." He particularly hated those. He'd thought he fancied Hermione once. She was smart, pretty, so different from the girls he knew, but even that had only been an illusion, a last ditch effort at being "normal". In the end liking her and wanting her were very different things. She fancied Ron and frankly, he didn't blame her. The Weasley boys were all very handsome, the one currently sulking in his bathtub the most handsome of all.

Bill reached up to the fuzzy outline of Viktor and traced his features blearily. "You should have been a girl," he declared in that way only a man completely bent arse over head on booze could. "I could have fallen for you instead of Fleur, and we'd have had tons of babies because I just couldn't keep my bloody hands off of you," he yawned.

"I vould not have been a very pretty girl," Viktor humored him. "You vould not have noticed me."

"I would have," Bill said lazily. "You're so sweet. Brave. Best bloody flyer I've ever seen. And I love the accent."

Viktor didn't know why Bill was caressing the side of his neck and giving him that wistful smile, but he wasn't about to stop him. He adored him. Everything about him was wonderful – right down to his fake smiles and the sadness that only Viktor was allowed to see.

Bill's eyelids were drifting closed, but it was right when he lowered his guard, right when he thought Bill was just about to fall asleep where he lay – long legs bent at the knee to accommodate his height in the bath – that Bill delivered the whopper around another lazy yawn. "Hey, Vik. You're not by any chance gay, are you?"

Viktor coughed and quickly settled Bill's hand on the edge of the tub. He managed, just barely, to look amused. "I'll get you that potion," he said, quickly excusing himself from the room. If this was how Bill always was when he was drunk, he didn't think he would survive a repeat performance. He closed the bathroom door and leaned against it, letting out a shaky breath and trying to steady both his hormones in his nerves. He cursed when he dropped the mug he was pouring the potion mixture into three times. There wasn't a spell in creation that could save his trousers now. They were stained beyond repair. He wasn't sure his friendship with Bill would survive either, if the man insisted on asking questions like that last one all night. He could only hope the redhead fell asleep quickly and didn't remember any of this in the morning.

When he returned with the potion, Bill was already asleep. On the one hand, he was relieved. On the other, he still had to get him out of the tub, dried, dressed, and into bed. He deflated a bit. Handsome. Charming. Perfect. And perfectly high maintenance, too. _'It's not his fault. Fleur has turned his life upside down, and the least you can do is be there to hold his hair back in the morning when all that booze riots in his stomach and he ends up with his head over the toilet. He needs someone he can rely on now, someone he can trust not to tell anyone how upset he is. If that's all you can be for him, Viktor, then that is what you are going to be.'_

So Viktor didn't complain about hauling Bill's dead weight out of the tub, or trying not to look at him while he dried him off and spelled a pair of sweats onto him, and he tried to be gentle while brushing the tangles out of his hair. He didn't even get angry when Bill landed across the bed and settled in such a way as to make it impossible for another body to fit beside him. He just took out the spare blanket and tried to get comfortable in a recliner that only barely fit his stocky frame.

And the next morning when he got up (not woke up, as that would imply having slept), to wash Bill's clothes and start the coffee that the redhead would no doubt be in dire need of, he didn't blame Bill at all for the fact that, apparently, when filled with enough alcohol, even Mr. Perfect could snore loud enough to wake the dead.

It was noon before Bill's stomach was willing to keep down the detoxifying potion and he started to feel better. He took a shower, cleaned up, and resisted doing a pirouette in the kitchen doorway because he still felt muddle-headed and dizzy. "How do I look?" he asked with half a smirk. "Sober, dashing, and ready to face the world?"

Viktor offered him a tired smile. "Not if you do not fix that tie. Here." He fixed the tie rather expertly for a man who never wore won and tucked it neatly into Bill's jacket. "You really should not go drinking in your vork clothes, though. I have vashed them, but they still smell of stale cigarette smoke."

_'You're not by any chance gay, are you?'_ Bill remembered asking something like that last night. He also remembered how quickly Viktor excused himself. He'd been a complete arse last night. Now that he was sober (and feeling the riotous headache that sobriety entailed) he didn't know how Viktor had tolerated him with such grace. It seemed like a miracle that the Bulgarian was even speaking to him this morning. "Vik, you know, what I asked you last night..." He started, ready and raring to apologize until his face turned blue.

"I am not ashamed of it," Viktor answered, squaring his shoulders. "But I did not vant things to be akvard for you."

Bill was floored. Really? A guy like Viktor? So burly and masculine and...also incredibly gentle and sweet. He'd always thought Viktor was most like a giant Bulgarian teddy bear. He'd never guess (at least while not rat-arsed) that Viktor might be batting for the home team, but to have it admitted so stubbornly. _'Heh. He really is cute.'_

"Well, good for you, then," Bill said, because really, what else could he say? "You didn't need to worry. I've had my share of fun with guys, too." He laughed at the shocked look on Viktor's face. "Don't look so surprised. The world, the things in it, they're not always what you expect. People are like that too."

"Vell..." Viktor didn't know how to answer. Now was no time for confessions of love, but, maybe someday.

Bill put his hands on Viktor's shoulders and gave them a good squeeze. "Vik, thanks for everything, really. I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Vhat are friends for?" Viktor answered, relieved his voice sounded normal even though he felt like he had a frog stuck in his throat.

Bill smiled and shook his head, patting Viktor's shoulder. "You're going to make some lucky guy very happy someday, Vik," he said before moving toward the door. He couldn't leave his kids with their Uncle Fred forever. Merlin only knows what sort of spells they'd pick up. Being a single parent would be hard enough without trying to undo the damage of skiving snackboxes and prank teas at every turn. Oh, he loved his children, mind, and he was glad that he would have them most of the year, but that didn't mean it would be easy. He would have to rely on his family far more than he was used to relying on anyone, but he would make it work.

"Maybe someday," Viktor answered, and Bill thought, just for a moment, that 'maybe someday' sounded an awful lot like a promise worth keeping.

**~The End~**


End file.
